Has this ever happened before

[bansaisequoia]

As I post this there are 4 hours and 24 minutes left in the month of October in which cryptograms.org registrants can add to their final scores. At this point in time there are 7 solvers who have scores in excess of one million. How many more will exceed 999,999 points in one month?

[maradnu]

How many?

In looking back, the most in a previous month (post-crash) was five people over 1,000,000 points. At least three of the months pre-crash I was in the top seven, so I know in those months there were not that many. Can't speak for the other four months I played, but I suspect not.

Kind of obvious there won't be more than seven this month. I'm the next closest, and there's not enough time left for me to get there. Since I can't improve my position in any competition, I'm taking tonight off. Next person below me has even less chance.

Next month? Who knows.

I've never hit a million in a month. Takes somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,500 completed puzzles to get there. Most I've ever done was 3,300.